Nasdaq Up 50 Points; Gold Rises Over 1%

U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 50 points on Friday.

The Dow traded up 0.25% to 34,274.45 while the NASDAQ rose 0.49% to 11,055.03. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.29% to 3,994.87.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares gained by 0.9% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Newegg Commerce, Inc. NEGG, up 57%, and Atour Lifestyle Holdings Limited ATAT, up 25%.

In trading on Friday, utilities shares fell by 0.4%.

Top Headline

Bank of America Corporation BAC reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Bank of America posted quarterly earnings of $0.85 per share, topping market estimates of $0.77 per share. The bank’s quarterly sales came in at $24.50 billion, versus expectations of $24.33 billion.

Equities Trading UP

• iPower Inc. IPW shares shot up 54% to $0.78.
• Shares of Newegg Commerce, Inc. NEGG got a boost, shooting 57% to $2.30. Newegg recently unleashed its gaming laptops.
• SmileDirectClub, Inc. SDC shares were also up, gaining 48% to $0.7125.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY shares tumbled 27% to $3.7999. Bed Bath & Beyond is in talks with Sycamore Partners to sell assets, including its Buy Buy Baby stores, as part of a possible bankruptcy process, NYT reported.
• Shares of Omega Therapeutics, Inc. OMGA were down 32% to $7.50.
• Catalyst Biosciences, Inc. CBIO was down, falling 30% to $0.2724.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.9% to $79.87 while gold traded up 1.3% at $1,922.90.

Silver traded up 1.7% to $24.415 on Friday while copper rose 0.5% to $4.2175.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.52%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.64% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index gained 0.61%. The German DAX climbed 0.19%, French CAC 40 climbed 0.69% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.19%.

The Eurozone’s trade deficit widened to EUR 11.7 billion in November, from EUR 3.9 billion in the year-ago period. Industrial production in the Eurozone surged 1% month-over-month in November. Industrial production in the UK declined by 0.2% from a month ago in November, while the country posted a trade deficit of GBP 1.8 billion in November. The British economy grew by 0.1% in November from the previous month.

German economy expanded by 1.9% in 2022, slowing from a 2.6% growth in 2021, while industrial production in Italy declined by 0.3% from a month ago in November. Spanish consumer price inflation was revised lower to 5.7% year-over-year in December, while annual inflation rate in France came in at 5.9% in December.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Friday, with the Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 1.04%, and China’s Shanghai Composite Index gaining 1.01%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.25%.

Chinese trade surplus fell to $78.01 billion in December compared to a revised $93.21 billion in the same month of the previous year.

Economics

• Prices for US imports climbed 0.4% from a month ago in December, while export prices declined by 2.6% from a month earlier.
• The University of Michigan consumer sentiment climbed to 64.6 in January from 59.7 in December.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 103,426,740 cases with around 1,124,390 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,681,880 cases and 530,720 deaths, while France reported over 39,435,930 COVID-19 cases with 163,240 deaths. In total, there were at least 670,547,280 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,724,860 deaths.